Monthly Archives: January 2008

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Two men arguing a different side of the same issue. Both throwing verbal blows and insults at the other’s character. Connie Llanos in the Daily News.

But the heated spat was not between Sen. John McCain and Gov. Mitt Romney – the two candidates who dominated Wednesday’s GOP debate at the Reagan Library. It was an exchange between a reporter and a political strategist in the media spin room.

A massive plan to accelerate transportation in the region with a $26 billion high-speed train system received initial approval from the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday as it created a joint-powers agreement with neighboring cities. Daily News.

The move marked the first step in negotiations to solidify an Atlanta-based firm’s proposal to construct a magnetic-levitation train system that would start at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, run through downtown and eventually reach Ontario Airport.

Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith said American Maglev Technology would foot the bill for the system and has been working with the Southern California Association of Governments on its proposal.

– A bill to convert the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site into a state park was formally introduced in the Legislature this week, but it is likely to be at least a decade before the project could begin. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.

Assembly Bill 1842 by Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita, would create a joint-powers authority with seven state and local agencies to oversee the creation of a park on the 2,850-acre property after it is cleaned up by Boeing Co. and turned over to the state.

Boeing recently reached an agreement with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pay for cleaning the contaminated land to high standards and then give it to the state for use only as open space.

Using the ties of the Kennedy family to Latinos, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced Wednesday that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., will be coming to Los Angeles this week to help build support.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has locked up some of the major Latino officials in the state and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa serves as one of her national co-chairs.

But, with Kennedy announcing his support of Obama this week, the campaign said it has arranged a trip for him this week — at a site to be determined — to try to win over Latino voters before next Tuesday’s primary election.

The Kennedy family has been popular in the Latino community dating back to the early 1960s when then-Sen. Robert Kennedy backed the United Farm Workers in their organizing efforts.